


Drüskelle, Drüsje, Wraith

by saiditallbefore



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Multi, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Religion, Threesome - F/F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-16 22:38:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13063629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/pseuds/saiditallbefore
Summary: “We’re being hunted.”Inej offers Matthias and Nina safety on the Wraith.  They offer her something else.





	Drüskelle, Drüsje, Wraith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evewithanapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/gifts).



> Thanks to Rei for betaing!

Inej hears rumors of Matthias and Nina long before she sees them again. A former _drüskelle_ and his _drüsje_ lover, fighting against the Second Army. A Corporalki and her pet Fjierdan, hunting down _drüskelle_ and their wolves and slaughtering them mercilessly. Some said he was a heretic, twisting Djel’s truth. Some said she was a deserter. Some said they were both criminals, always a step ahead of the authorities.

But by far, the most persistent rumor is this: they were executed by the _drüskelle_ for witchcraft and treason. Nina (though the rumors never used her name) used her Grisha magic to bring them back to life, and ever since then, they’d roamed the land in a perpetual state of unrest, somewhere between life and death.

Inej thinks it’s funny, especially when her crew tells the stories to each other in whispers at night, trying to scare each other. They are the crew of the _Wraith_ : the ghost ship, the terror of the seas, the slavers’ bane. Inej herself has been rumored to be a ghost, or a Grisha, or something beyond human. 

But such stories are powerful. They have weight, and they have echoes. And so, Inej smiles each time she hears a new one.

* * *

They’re docked in Weddle, in Novyi Zem, to resupply. Inej leaves that part to her crew— they know what they’re about.

She has another mission in mind.

The waffle houses in Weddle don’t compare to the ones in Ketterdam. In fact, there’s only one that even comes close. But life has taught Inej to take what she can get— and waffles are a rare luxury, on the True Sea.

A little bell tinkles over the shop door as Inej walks in. She glances around— it’s unlikely she has any enemies lying in wait for her in Novyi Zem, but it pays to be cautious. And there, in a corner booth, she spots a familiar-looking couple. 

She silently slides into the booth, next to Nina, picks up a fork, and begins nibbling on Nina’s stack of waffles.

Matthias is the first to notice her, pulling a knife on her threateningly before he realizes who it is.

“Wraith?” he says disbelievingly, in his accented Kerse.

Inej waves her fingers at him. 

Nina squeals and throws her arms around Inej. “Inej! I didn’t know you were in the city!” she exclaims. Then she notices the fork Inej is holding and slaps Inej’s hand. “Get your own!” 

Inej laughs. “We’re resupplying. What about you? I heard you were in Ravka!” She pauses, taking a moment to give her order to a passing waiter.

“You should know better than to believe everything you hear,” Nina says lightly.

“There was some trouble,” Matthias adds. 

Inej raises her eyebrows. “Oh?”

He shakes his head, giving a furtive glance around the restaurant. “Not here.”

The conversation shifts to lighter topics, then— or as light as any topics the three of them can manage. Inej passes on the latest gossip about the Dregs she picked up last time she was in Ketterdam, and with stories of what Jesper and Wylan have been doing. (Kaz’s exploits are not fit for telling in a brightly lit waffle shop.) Nina describes some of the latest fashions she’d seen in Os Alta, and Matthias interjects with a story about a circus they saw— and an acrobat there, who he claims was nowhere near as good as Inej. 

When they finish, Inej leads them to the harbor, where the _Wraith_ is docked. They all crowd into her cabin, around the little table covered with Inej’s maps and charts. 

“What happened in Ravka?” she asks. 

Nina and Matthias share a long look.

“It’s my fault,” Nina says.

“It’s mine as well.” Matthias covers her hand with his.

Nina begins. “I thought— I thought I could go back. I didn’t think we’d be welcomed, but I thought people would understand that Matthias has changed.”

Matthias shakes his head. “I was blind before. I don’t blame them for hating me.”

“We were thrown into prison,” Inej continues. “For treason. Zoya intervened, but we cannot return.”

“Surely there are other places you can go?” Inej asks. They may not be welcome in Fjerda or Ravka, but the world is a big place. There are many ways for a person to disappear.

“That’s not all,” Matthias says gravely. “We’re being hunted.”

Matthias and Nina take turns telling the story in hushed tones. They had travelled to Fjerda— not to Djerholm again, but to the little towns and fishing villages along the coast. Matthias had spoken to the people, especially the angry young men, about his new beliefs about Djel. He’d tried to convince them, one by one, that the Grisha were as natural as anyone else.

They’d been run out of a number of towns, of course. Frankly, Inej was more surprised that anyone at all had listened. The two of them had managed to stay just ahead of the _drüskelle_ , before buying passage out of Fjerda and toward Ravka.

But Matthias is sure they’d been followed: first to Ravka, and then to Novyi Zem.

“The _drüskelle_?” Inej asks.

“Probably,” Matthias admits ruefully.

“I don’t know who else it could be,” Nina says. She thinks for a moment, drumming her fingers on the table. “Well, I do, but I can’t think of anyone else who would have been following us since Fjerda.”

“What are you going to do?” The solution seems obvious to Inej, but she supposes she should ask first.

“I think we should stay in Weddle,” Nina says. “Lie low for a while.”

Inej snorts. “You’re incapable of lying low.”

Matthias lets out a soft laugh. “Exactly. Which is why I think we should keep moving. To Ketterdam, maybe.”

“And then where?” Nina demands.

“Come with me,” Inej says. They look at her, startled. “I don’t stay in one place often. I already know what you can do. I’m sure neither of you minds hunting down slavers?”

* * *

Space on the ship is already tight, so there’s little room for Nina and Matthias. So before they add Novyi Zem, Inej has the crew add an extra bunk to her cabin and to Specht’s. Specht— her first mate ever since she set sail from Ketterdam— is perfectly content to share with Matthias, and Inej would never turn Nina away.

She’s not sure a person _can_ say no to Nina.

They set sail early in the morning, just after the sun rises. Nina is still abed— nothing short of life-threatening danger will rouse her at this hour. But Matthias joins Inej on the deck, watching the shore grow smaller in the distance.

Finally, Inej breaks the silence. “You said they’re calling you a heretic, now, as well.”

Matthias grips onto the railing, his knuckles white. “They are blind— it is as you all said, the Ice Court was built by Grisha! They say it was the work of Djel, but could it not be both? They say that Grisha are less than human, that they are unnatural, but does not Djel work through them, too? And if this is true, then…” He waves his hands, apparently at a loss for words. 

“I don’t know about Djel,” Inej says. She touches a hand to the knife on her belt, named for Sankta Lizabeta. “But I believe in what you are doing.”

He places his hand on her shoulder. She refuses to flinch.

“Thank you, Wraith. Inej.” He leaves her, then, presumably to go find Nina. 

Inej watches the shore until it disappears out of sight.

* * *

Life falls into a familiar routine. Inej sets the course and oversees her crew, with the help of Specht and her second mate. But then she’ll turn around, and Matthias or Nina will be there. She’s glad to see them, of course. They keep her company and they’re more than helpful. And they both know a great deal more about tactics than Inej does, even if their knowledge is all land-based.

Inej wonders if she should feel more left out, with Matthias and Nina so obviously in love. Shouldn’t she be jealous, at the very least?

But Nina is her usual lovely self— perhaps not as bubbly as she was before the _jurda parem_ , but still kind and quick to laughter. Matthias is a bastion of quiet strength, and always entirely respectful of Inej and her skills. They spend comfortable evenings curled up in Inej and Nina’s cabin, talking or reading or poring over charts with steaming mugs of cocoa in hand.

Nina, who has never known the meaning of personal space, always curls up with one of them on these evenings. Usually, she leans on Matthias, her head on his shoulder, while Inej stretches out across her own bunk. But sometimes, she cuddles up with Inej: putting her feet in Inej’s lap, or brushing out Inej’s hair.

Inej has rarely been touched since her time at the Menagerie. She keeps herself apart from others, unless she is in a fight. But Nina is casual, not meaning anything by it. It’s simply in her nature.

* * *

Inej is up on the rigging when she sees the slave ship. To an untrained eye, it might pass as a merchant ship. But it’s the wrong size, and here, in the middle of the True Sea, it flies no flags.

Well, neither does the _Wraith_. Inej slides down the rigging effortlessly and alerts her crew. As they run to their stations, Matthias and Nina appear at her side.

“Where do you want us?” Nina asks.

“Do you have any ranged weapons?” Inej asks Matthias. 

“My rifle.”

Inej nods. “Join the others.” She looks at Nina and hesitates. But she needs an answer “How are you?”

Nina flexes her hand. “I’m not like I was. But once they start dying…”

“Follow me with the rest of the boarding party,” Inej tells her. 

If either of them minds taking orders from her, they don’t show it. Inej touches each of her knives and says their names in her mind. Petyr, Marya, Anastasia, Lizabeta, Sankt Vladimir, Sankta Alina.

They draw closer to the slave ship. The slavers fire on them, but they have only one cannon, and it far overshoots the _Wraith_.

Inej gives the signal, and her crew fires their guns. Most of them miss, but that’s deliberate. Under the cover of gunfire, other crew members fire harpoons with ropes attached across the gap. Inej grabs a rolled up bridge, already tied securely onto the deck. She flexes her feet and, unrolling the flimsy bridge behind her, she dashes across the newly-made tightrope.

The rest of the boarding party is behind her, but Inej is still the master of the tightrope. She’s the first to the other ship. Several members of the crew are there, waiting, but she’s ready: Sankt Petyr and Sankta Alina are in her hands. She stands on the very edge of the boarding bridge, keeping it in place.

Sankta Alina cuts the throat of the first crew member. Sankt Petyr guts the second. She throws Sankta Alina at the third, picks up the bridge, retrieves her knife, and ties the bridge in place.

On either side of her, her two crewmembers who are the next best at tightrope walking finally catch up and secure their own bridges. With that, the rest of the boarding party, including Nina, scrambles across the gap and onto the slave ship.

Nina makes her way to Inej’s side, her hands extended in that way that way that only Grisha do, and the three men Inej just killed stand up. They turn on their former comrades and begin fighting them. Each man who falls only lies on the deck for a moment before standing up and joining the others under Nina’s control.

Seeing that Nina has the main deck under control, Inej breaks away to check the crew cabins. Her knives in hand, she kills the few men who had hidden. 

The last cabin appears empty. She surveys it quickly, and turns to leave. She’s needed back on deck, and she’ll have to deal with whatever is to be found below.

There’s a sudden pain in her left shoulder. Inej whirls around, and spots a young man who had been hiding behind a stack of crates. She throws a knife, and he falls to the ground, dying.

She touches her shoulder. A bullet wound, but it only grazed the shoulder. It can wait.

On the deck, Nina’s undead army has made quick work of the rest of the slavers, and Nina has released them again. Nina looks pale, and ready to collapse.

Inej wonders— will she ever fully recover from the _parem_? 

With a pair of trusted crewmen at her back, Inej clambers down to the lower deck. There are a dozen girls there, all Shu and Ravka. They look at her with fear and mistrust, and Inej’s heart aches.

“It’s alright,” she says in Ravkan, and again in Kerch. “I’m taking you home.” She still doesn’t speak Shu— she should have brought Nina down here— but one of the girls in the hold seems to be translating.

Inej leads the girls onto the _Wraith_. There are empty cabins belowdecks there, for just this purpose. They will be given clean clothes and fresh food, and the _Wraith_ will take them to ports in their home countries with enough money and supplies to return home. 

She’s done this before, for dozens of people. Usually they are girls, but not always. A few— those who had nothing to return to— stayed on as members of her crew.

The rest of her crew is looting the slave ship for useful supplies. Money, food, clothes— anything usable gets brought to the _Wraith_.

One by one, everyone follows Inej back to the _Wraith_. The movable bridges are rolled back up and stored away, and the ropes connecting the ships are cut.

Inej gives one last signal, and Sonja, the only Grisha on her crew apart from Nina, stretches out her hand. She crumples it into a fist, and flames begin to lick at the deck of the slave ship. She does not stop until the entire ship is engulfed in flames.

Inej stands at the railing, watching. A few of the newly-freed girls join her— they cheer along with the rest of the crew when the ship finally sinks.

Inej turns away. Almost instantly, Specht is at her side.

“Where to?” he asks.

Inej hesitates, remembering Matthias and Nina’s troubles with Ravka and their pursuers. But she has a duty to these girls. “Set a course for Os Kervo.”

* * *

Inej spends the rest of the day looking after the rescued girls. When she finishes that, she walks among her crew, making sure their wounds have been looked after and that none of them are about to fall asleep where they are standing.

Nina is already in bed, but Inej is wide awake. She’s in her usual spot on deck, leaning on the railing, when Matthias approaches her.

He’s quiet at first— he and Inej are both generally content to let Nina be the one who fills in silences. She’s tempted to ask what he’s thinking about, but he looks pensive, and she knows too well how quickly thoughts can turn dark.

He glances at her, and does a double-take. “You’re hurt.”

“What?” Inej glances down, and sees the gash in her shoulder. “Oh. It’s nothing.”

Matthias frowns. “You should clean it, at least. It could get infected.”

He’s right, of course. Inej knows too well what infections can mean— and Matthias, a former soldier, probably knows even better.

“My medkit is in my cabin,” she says. “I don’t want to wake Nina.”

Matthias snorts. “I don’t think anything can wake Nina. But I think there’s a kit in mine.”

Specht and Matthias’s cabin is a mirror of Nina and Inej’s, though more utilitarian. While Inej has miniatures of her saints pinned up over her bunk, and Nina has a colorful scarf draped like a canopy over hers, Matthias doesn’t seem to have any personal effects at all.

Inej tentatively sits on the edge of Matthias’s bed, and for a brief moment, a frisson of panic runs through her. She is alone in a bedroom with a man. 

But she touches a hand to the knife on her thigh— Sankta Anastasia— and she remembers. She is not that girl from the Menagerie anymore.

She is the Wraith. And this is Matthias, not some stranger.

Inej shucks off her jacket, wincing as it pulls at the dried blood on her shoulder wound. 

Matthias turns back to her, holding a damp rag. He gently dabs at Inej’s shoulder, cleaning the blood away.

In the dingy lamplight, Matthias’s shock of golden hair seems to glow, making him look strangely like one of the pictures of the saints. 

“Do Fjerdans have saints?” she asks.

The question seems to surprise him. He draws back slightly, stopping his ministrations. Then he continues.

“No,” he says. “We follow Djel, not men. Men may falter, but Djel does not.”

“But if someone falters, then overcomes, shouldn’t they be recognized?” Inej asks.

Matthias concedes with a slight nod. “Perhaps. But perhaps they would not have overcome their failings without the help of Djel.”

He turns back to the medkit, and the cabin is quiet except for the creaking of the ship on the waves. He pulls out a roll of bandages.

“I don’t need that,” Inej protests. “It’s barely a scratch!”

“You’re going to bleed all over everything,” Matthias says. “And this will help stop infection.”

Inej sighs. “Fine.”

Matthias gently wraps the bandage around her shoulder. His rough fingertips brush against her, raising goosebumps on her bare skin.

After an indefinite amount of time, Matthias pulls his hands back.

“Finished,” he says.

Inej smiles, and looks at Matthias directly. His bright blue eyes seem to be lit from within, and Inej’s breath catches in her throat.

He leans forward, places his hand on her cheek. Then he is kissing her— and she is kissing him back. He goes slowly. His hands do not roam, and he does not press his tongue into her mouth until she initiates.

Inej has never kissed anyone for her own pleasure before. But now she understands why one might want to.

And then Inej remembers: this is not just Matthias, her friend. This is her best friend’s lover.

She pulls away, and leaves the cabin without even grabbing her jacket.

* * *

Inej does not sleep that night. She spends it in the rigging, watching the sea and the stars. Despite the view, she desperately wishes for the sloping rooftops of Ketterdam, to run and hide on the dark, hidden pathways that only she knows.

She will have to tell Nina. Better a terrible truth than a kind lie, after all— and Nina knows the damage of kind lies as well as Inej does.

When the first rays of the sun burst over the horizon, Inej scrambles down the rigging and walks purposefully to her cabin.

Nina is still asleep, of course. Her hair is tangled into knots and a bit of drool has dribbled onto her pillow. But she is still beautiful, though far less glamorous than she is during the day.

Inej smiles. Nina looks peaceful, for once. So often, since the _jurda parem_ , she has looked haunted and hollow. Inej does not want to be the one to disrupt that peace.

But Inej does not trust herself tell the truth if she waits any longer.

“Nina,” she says softly, shaking Nina’s shoulder. And again, louder. “Nina!”

Nina sits up with a grumble, and rubs her eyes blearily. “What’s going on?”

Inej reminds herself that she has done worse things in her life than this. “Matthias kissed me. I kissed him back.”

Nina blinks. She pats Inej’s hand clumsily. “You really do worry too much, you know.”

“Nina, be serious!” Inej protests.

“I’m seriously going back to bed,” Nina says, rolling over and yanking the covers over her head.

As far as Nina is concerned, that seems to be the end of it, but Inej isn’t satisfied. Surely some worse punishment must be coming, for such a terrible betrayal?

The comfortable evenings in their cabin come to an end. Inej avoids Matthias, finding excuses to work on another part of the ship whenever he approaches her. Nina is unavoidable, but neither one of them speaks of the incident.

They are sailing east, to Os Kervo. Then south, to Bhez Ju in Shu Han. 

Inej’s plans after that are hazy. Relations with Shu Han are complicated— it will probably be easier to make the short voyage to Ketterdam and restock supplies there than to buy them in either Os Kervo or Bhez Ju. If there is nothing pressing, perhaps she will give everyone a shore leave and allow herself some time to visit Jesper and Wylan and Kaz, to check up on the Dregs and to walk her old rooftops.

She wonders if Matthias and Nina will stay on, after that. They are the newest parts of her crew— not even truly part of her crew— but already, she has trouble remembering what the _Wraith_ was like before they joined up.

* * *

The journey to Os Kervo takes a few weeks, and Inej avoids Nina and Matthias as best as she can for all that time.

They stay on the ship— in case whoever is whoever is hunting them is in the city— while Inej disembarks to take the Ravkan girls into the city. She gives each of them enough money to get home. When she can, she arranges their transportation and their lodgings. 

It takes most of the day. In some ways, Os Kervo feels completely foreign to her. Even in the years she grew up in Ravka, Inej rarely lived in the cities. But it is comforting to be surrounded by people speaking the language of her childhood. She sees other Suli in the crowds, wearing traditional clothing— and not just prostitutes, either. But it is not her city, in the way that Ketterdam has become. She does not know its secrets and its hidden places. She is only a tourist.

She does not return to the ship until dusk. Instantly, she knows something is wrong. It’s too quiet— or rather, the quiet is the wrong kind. 

Inej slips her knives into her hands. 

Someone has been here, and left. Blood stains the deck, and several crew members lie dead. 

Inej checks the cabins, finding a few injured crew members holed up, weapons at the ready. She gives the least injured ones medkits, and slips belowdecks to check on the freed slave girls who still remain. Were they alright?

Her question is answered almost immediately: she is stopped by Sonja, who stands ready to fight in the doorway between her and the girls.

Inej raises her hands over her head. “It’s me,” she says.

Sonja drops her hands, and Inej can see that she looks exhausted. 

“They’re all fine,” Sonja says.

Inej looks in the doorway and sheaths her knives. The girls are all there— looking terrified, it’s true, but they’re alive and unharmed. Specht is in there, too— there’s a bullet wound in his leg, but he’s got a rifle propped up and is clearly guarding the girls.

“What happened?” Inej demands.

“Soldiers,” Sonja says.

“Fjerdans,” Specht adds. “They seemed to know Matthias and Nina.”

Matthias had said they were being hunted. 

Inej scowls, and looks at Specht. “I’m going after them. As soon as I’m onshore, set sail. Anyone tries to get aboard but me, Matthias, or Nina? Shoot them.” She glances at Sonja. “Or light them on fire.” 

As she walks away, Inej wonders if she learned from Kaz a little _too_ well. 

* * *

Os Kervo isn’t her city, but Inej fades into it better than a crew of _drüskelle_. She may not know the rooftops like she does the ones in Ketterdam, but she’s Suli, and no one looks twice at her. Twice, she has to ask if anyone has seen light-haired men passing through, or where they went, but she asks in Ravkan, and she doesn’t even have to give one of her ready excuses.

She finds the _drüskelle_ in a little, run-down old shack on the outskirts of town. Nina and Matthias are both there, securely tied up and gagged.

Until she frees the others, it is her against a dozen _drüskelle_. Inej fingers her knives. Petyr, Marya, Anastasia, Lizabeta, Sankt Vladimir, Sankta Alina. 

She kneels on an overlooking rooftop and waits for her opportunity to strike.

When night falls completely, the men sleep in shifts. After she’s sure that the men not on watch are truly asleep, Inej creeps down from her rooftop.

Knives in hand, she uses the shadows as her camouflage. She sneaks up behind each of the men on watch, one by one, and slits their necks so quickly they have no time to cry out. Then, the sleeping men. 

When they have all been dispatched of, Inej picks her way through the bodies to Nina and Matthias. She takes care of Nina first, cutting the ropes that bind her wrists and ankles. Nina spits the gag out with disgust, and Inej repeats the process for Matthias.

Nina stands, and throws her arms around Inej. “Thank you,” she says softly. “I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

“I’m sure you would have managed,” Inej says, after Nina releases her from the hug.

Matthias stands to join them, rubbing at the places on his wrists where the rope had cut into him. 

“How did they find you?” Inej asks.

Matthias shakes his head. “I don’t know. They must have been lying low, to have stayed in Ravka so long undetected.”

“They must have been certain we would come back,” Nina muses.

Inej looks down at the bodies. “Well, they won’t be a problem anymore.”

They leave the abandoned shack, now full of bodies, and walk toward the docks.

“Just let us get our things,” Nina says. “We’ll charter a ship to Ketterdam, or the Southern Colonies, or—”

“I’m sorry,” Inej says. “I didn’t mean—”

Nina and Matthias stop walking, and turn to look at her. They’re all standing in an empty street, bordered on either side by shops that have closed for the night. 

“What are _you_ sorry for?” Matthias asks.

Inej waves her hands impotently. “For— you know—” She pauses. “Wait, if that’s not what this is about, then why are you leaving?”

“The _drüskelle_ attacked your ship because they were looking for us,” Matthias says. “Your crew—”

“They knew what they were signing on for,” Inej says. “Maybe not like this, but still. They knew.”

They still look unsure— a look neither of them wears well. But Inej looks at them: bold, brash Nina, and outspoken, opinionated Matthias.

“Please. Don’t go,” she says. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but I want you on my crew. With me.”

Nina reaches out and takes her hand. “I don’t want to be anywhere besides with you and Matthias.” She touches her free hand to Inej’s cheek, and Inej’s heart begins to beat faster.

She steps back. “I am really sorry, you know. About what happened with—” she glances at Matthias out of the corner of her eye. “It won’t happen again.”

Nina laughs. “Are you still worried about that? I’ve tried to tell you, it’s not like that.”

Matthias lightly touches Inej’s shoulder. “We care about you. Very much.”

“Oh. _Oh_.” Inej feels herself flush, and is grateful to the darkness for covering her embarrassment. She’s hardly an innocent, but these things often don’t occur to her.

Nina steps closer to her again. Slowly, she smooths Inej’s hair, and runs her fingers along Inej’s jawline. Inej stands transfixed as Nina leans in closer. And then Nina’s lips are on hers, and her hands are in her hair. And Matthias is behind her— not touching her everywhere like Nina is, but present.

She pulls away from Nina, and turns to Matthias, remembering how he had kissed her the last time.

She allows herself to touch him this time. She’s touched men before, but never for her own pleasure. Never because she wanted to.

Inej lightly dances her hands down Matthias’s chest. He leans down, and then he is kissing her while Nina nibbles at her earlobe, and Inej’s hands are curling into fists in his shirt.

When they finally break apart, she feels dizzy and light-headed from emotion. She looks around, and realizes they are still in the middle of a deserted street.

“We should— we should really get back to the ship,” she says.

Matthias and Nina share a look. They take Inej’s hands and pull her toward the docks, grinning as they go.


End file.
